Hey ticket buyers and message board users! As you’ve probably noticed, due to the unprecedented demand for David Bowie’s North American shows, BowieNet has again reached meltdown. You people are hungry! But don’t worry, there are still PLENTY of tickets left , and pleaseREMEMBER: BowieNet members have access to these pre-sales until the end of the week, so please don’t fret, you aren’t competing with the general public for these tickets. To help lighten the load on the ticket server, we have had to take down the message boards temporarily. This is an inconvenient but necessary evil, and they will be back as soon as we feel that the servers are coping with the incredible demand.Thank you for your continued patience.
Messageboards Are Back
The message boards are back up and running now that the server load has lightened.
GET TICKETS HERE.Free free to return to the discourse section.
Ricky Gervais Quizzes Db In The Observer
Ha ha ha, hee hee hee…
This morning’s Observer here in the UK is worth every penny of the cover price, not just because it contains a free 5 track Blur CD with a couple of little gems on it, but also because it features an “interview” with David Bowie conducted by star of The Office, and XFM Superstar DJ, Ricky Gervais in the premier issue of The Observer Music Monthly.
Ricky is a long-term Bowie fan, and regular readers of these pages will know just how big a fan he is. As I told you a long time back, (can’t find the item right now) one of the first TV things Ricky did was a one-off comedy about a Bowie impersonator who ran a video retail franchise. The show, called Golden Years, was a kind of forerunner to The Office, and in it Ricky’s character would turn up to board meetings in full Aladdin Sane stage garb.
I have a tape of this show tucked away somewhere that I can’t locate right now, and I’ve been trying to get hold of a copy for David to view. So I called Ricky this morning who was on his way out to play tennis with a celebrity friend, a clue to the identity of that friend is that they were both filmed having a nice time together live on Fame Academy last night. Ricky did point out to me that they did both have their female partners in-tow, even if there was no visual evidence of that fact during the broadcast. Whatever, it’s none of my business.**
I’m digressing… Ricky tells me he was never 100% happy with the way Golden Years was presented, and for that reason he doesn’t actually own a tape of the show. As if to add some weight to his reason for not owning a copy he reckoned thus: “I bet you won’t find a copy of The Laughing Gnome in David Bowie’s house.”
Anyway, the Q & A in The Observer, (which was conducted via e-mail exchanges) is most entertaining and it can be found in it’s entirety on line
RG: What’s the point of what you do?
DB: To avoid boredom. And to express my disgust at a hostile but indifferent … No, that was what I said in 1968. To avoid boredom, then.
** Reading back over this paragraph, it appeared to me that my words could be misinterpreted. I would like to state now that I do not intend to give the impression that Ricky and his friend are anything other than vigorously heterosexual!
Reality: Highest Db Uk Chart Entry For Ten Years
I sped from planet X to planet Alpha…
It gives me the greatest pleasure to announce that David Bowie’s latest album, Reality, has entered the
I’m sure you’ll all want to join me in congratulating David on yet another top five album… Well done to David and to everybody involved with the making of Reality.
You can listen to the run down live online by clicking on the image above now.
We’ll be celebrating toward the end of the week with a competition to win some great Reality related goodies, and we’ll bring you other chart positions from around the world as we get them.
New Gad Album And Revamped Website
One magical moment…
The official Gail Ann Dorsey website that we told you about a couple of months back, (07/07/03 NEWS: AT LAST, THE OFFICIAL GAD WEBSITE!) has already had a tasteful revamp at the hands of BowieNetter Ursula2k.
There’s still a lot to come on the site, but one of the things you can do right now is pre-order Gail’s new CD, I Used To Be…, which is a collection of newly-recorded songs that Gail has written over the last fifteen years, the oldest being The Fool and the most recent, This Time (Barely Alive).
All of the songs are original GAD compositions, including three co-written songs. Two of those, Whether You Are The One and Be My Angel, were co-written by ex Tears For Fears head honcho, Roland Orzabal. The other is a song called Magical which was co-written with Kristen Hall back in 1998. I spoke to Gail about the album this afternoon and she explained that Magical is in fact a “little homage” to David Bowie.
The track was written during a quiet period for Gail, before the recording of ‘hours..’ and during a time when she was feeling quite low and not knowing if she would ever work with David again. Anyway, that’s all behind her now, and as one of the longest-serving Bowie band members, she obviously feels a little differently about things now than she did back in 1998.
Gail has given us a BowieNet exclusive by letting us reproduce the lyrics of Magical, even before they are up on her own site.
Magical by Gail Ann Dorsey
You are the bright, white light
In my streets of darkness
A storyteller
With wings I envy
Baby, I?ve been waiting for you
Waiting for you all my life
What did I know before you came?
One in million
Flowers on my pillow
One of kind hands
Reaching out to me
Baby, you?re my shining armour
Beauty and dressed to kill
Nothing I know can be the same
CHORUS
I WANNA DANCE
PICK ME UP AND TURN ME ?ROUND
ONE FOOT OUT, ONE FOOT DOWN
ALL MY SENSES HIT THE GROUND
I CLOSE MY EYES, I FEEL SO FREE
AND IT COMES SO EASILY
IT CAN BE MAGICAL…
? IT CAN BE MAGICAL
My little hero
Never short of wonder
Wherever we go
Racing its? to win
Straight into the arms of parlours
Straight into the halls of fame
Into this handsome honeymoon
CHORUS
BRIDGE
I want to fly for real
I want to get high for real this time
Cause magic we?re made of
A mystic parade of desires? desires?
VERSE TAG
I was a picture of a prima donna
That was stranded
On the edge of town
Only a face without a name
CHORUS x 2
Thanx for that Gail. Another name that you may remember from those pre ‘hours…’ days, one Zachary Alford, plays drums on the album and Gail’s good friend Sara Lee also plays bass along with Gail on one song. Members of Gail’s live outfit also play throughout I Used To Be…
It was Sara Lee that kind of pushed Gail in the direction of this album, when she helped Gail to sift through a huge back catalogue of songs to select the candidates for I Used To Be… I’ve not heard the CD yet, but Gail describes it as having a more immediate, organic feel than her last couple of albums.
Some other familiar names who have had some involvement with the packaging of the album are
Meanwhile Derek Donovan, aka
Go to
Pre-sale For Seven More Reality Dates
You’d let me know when the time was now…
The pre-sale for the North American leg of David Bowie’s 2003/2004 Reality tour will continue on Monday at 6:00pm EST with another seven dates being made available to BowieNetters ahead of the general onsale.
The gremlins that hampered the last pre-sale, have been hunted down and blitzed in the blender. Here follows the next seven pre-sale dates:
07 Dec – Washington – DC Patriot Center
07 Jan – Cleveland, OH – CSU ?Convocation Center
09 Jan – Detroit, MI – The Palace of Auburn Hills
11 Jan – Minneapolis, MN – The Target Center
19 Jan – Denver, CO – The Fillmore
25 Jan – Seattle, WA – The Paramount Theatre
31 Jan – Los Angeles, CA – Shrine Auditorium
Our pre-sale for these shows ends at noon on Friday September 26th, ahead of the general onsale, and you can purchase tickets for the above seven Bowie shows by going here on Monday at 6:00pm EST.
Win A Set Of Three Sony Reissue Cds
Do you think that your face looks the same?
As I said predicted earlier in the week, (09/15/03 NEWS: REALITY OUT NOW… PLUS SONY REISSUES) here’s the later-in-the-week contest to win five sets of the above reissues.
1.Outside, Earthling and ‘hours…’ are all back on the shelves at a special low price, but if you’ve not purchased them yet, you may want to save yourself around twenty quid by winning a set here for free.
Right then, this is one of those simple, but most likely, very irritating contests… oh you know by now how I like a bit of mischief.
I’m sure you’ve already guessed it… That’s right, it’s a spot the difference! Above is the unadulterated straight Rex Ray designed sleeve of the reissued ‘hours…’, while below is the one I’ve piddled about with in PhotoShop.
All you have to do is spot the seven differences in the version below and tell me what they are. There aren’t any real sneaky ones… at least I don’t think there are, but then again I created them so it’s hard to tell.
When you think you have spotted the seven differences between the sleeves, send an e-mail to me at TotalBlamBlam@davidbowie.com with a subject line of: Spot the difference. Usual rules apply, BowieNet user name must be supplied, etc.
This contest will end at midnight on Friday GMT, and I’ll announce the five winners sometime over the next weekend. Happy spotting kidz!
The Today Show: Bowienetters Report
Yesterday was such an easy game for us to play…
Many of you have either already seen yesterday’s Today show broadcast, or perhaps you were even there. There’s been ton’s of stuff already posted about this, including a report from the
But, I thought I’d hand our news piece over to two lucky women who each won a place in the VIP pen via BowieNet. Firstly, the excellent pictures on this page were taken via the lens of BowieNetter wwlh, while the words were supplied by the crazy-haired Saxonny… Take it away girl:
Surprise surprise; I walk out of the subway at Rockefeller Center at 6 am on the dot and hear New Killer Star coming from the Plaza. I’m thinking: oh, this must be a tape. Then it stops and I run to get my VIP pass and the band has just started rehearsing! They looked like they were hurtin; it was SO EARLY. Bowie had on faded black jeans, Chucks (converse sneakers) a black sweatshirt, sunglasses & a black baseball cap. So he looked like this psuedo British hit man from a Quentin Tarantino movie.
They played New Killer Star, Modern Love & Never Get Old two or three times each. For the rehearsal there were only a handful of us; King Tommy, me, Mandn, Patsdragon, absnthegreen and a few others. THAT in and of itself was great, it was still dark out and everyone was waking up, etc etc.
Then the show started and while Katie and Matt are doing an interview about a new disorder called Celebrity Worship (how…IRONIC…is that?) someone is coming around to the gathering crowd, passing out posters to people who don’t have any. The posters were made by NBC interns or something like that because they were very generic. Funny thing: one of them said I LOVE BOWIE with a picture of him…and at the bottom it said “PLAY BILLIE JEAN FOR US!!!”
Anyway, the bowienetters spotted this and started laughing. We called the techs over to us and explained that although Billie Jean is a great song…its a Michael Jackson song, not a Bowie song. So they took the poster inside and cut off the bottom with the Billie Jean part.
So finally it was time for him to play. He comes out wearing pretty much exactly the same thing as Poughkeepsie, and was smiling and winking and just having a GREAT time. Its so inspiring to see an artist having that much fun.
Katie Couric was standing near me and I did hear her whisper “Oh God, he is a cutie!” Good times…
He played New Killer star twice (once for a commercial break into I think) and then played New Killer Star, Modern Love & Never Get Old (which I just adore) If you are watching the TODAY show…and somehow we have to get you a copy…my head is so blatant in ALL the crowd shots its ridiculous…I had no idea my hair was that RED! You can pick me out from the cameras that are three blocks away *grin*
After the songs he signed autographs for us, was very nice but quick. But that’s appropriate; it’s the TODAY show.
Thank you thank you SO MUCH for the VIP tix! Made my birthday SOMETHING ELSE!!!
Thanx very much for that Ladies… great stuff. If anybody can set up one of those poll things on the MBs with the numbers of the corresponding wireimage pix, I’ll post large versions of the most popular five on the boards tomorrow.
Bowiephiles
I discovered a star…
Don’t forget to tune in to Virgin Radio in the UK and online, tomorrow (Sunday) at 6.00PM UK time.
David will once again be the guest of Ben Jones for Superstars, the show in which movie, music and TV superstars play their favourite tracks.
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I think about personal history…
An interview David gave last year on public radio is now streaming at Fresh Air Online.
You’ll remember that although this interview was broadcast, it wasn’t streamed at the time. It seems that the station have revamped the interview with some of the new tracks from Reality and used it again.
If you missed this last year, Terry Gross asks some interesting questions, and David talks at length about his teenage years among lots of other topics.
Click on the image above, and then choose ‘Read More Or Listen’ to listen.
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All the pages that have turned…
A new phone interview with David by The Dallas Morning News has been posted online at Fox11.com. Here are a couple of extracts:
Mr. Bowie sees strong continuity in his songs “over the last 30 or 40 years. … I think the isolationism, for instance, reflected in ‘Space Oddity’ in 1969 is not that much different from ‘The Loneliest Guy’ on the new album,” he says.
“As a writer, I seem to be left with the same big three or four questions in my basket of subject matter. I’ll never answer them, of course, but I’ll keep approaching them from a different point of view probably until the day that I die.”
Click here for the whole thing.
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The tragic youth was looking young and sexy…
The Daily Telegraph has posted a story which tells you how to win tickets for the Fashion Rocks event taking place at The Royal Albert Hall on October 15th, that we told you about back in July (07.22.2003 NEWS: BOWIE BY SATELLITE FOR PRINCE’S TRUST IN OCTOBER). Here are the details:
For your chance to win two tickets to the Fashion Rocks event at the Royal Albert Hall in London on October 15, and a Xelibri 6 mobile phone, send your name, address and daytime telephone number on a postcard to Telegraph/Xelibri Draw, Fashion Desk, The Daily Telegraph, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DT. The closing date for entries is September 26.For a copy of the terms and conditions, send an SAE to Xelibri Draw, Promotions Department, The Daily Telegraph, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DT.
Click on the image for more.
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Killing time in the ’70s…
This week’s NME, is well worth the cover price for the free CD ‘Hanging with the Strokes’. Among other great tracks are the original versions of The Modern Lovers’ Pablo Picasso, and The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waitin’ For The Man.
Look inside the magazine and you will see a pull out spread of large glossy photographs, one of which is a famous Mick Rock shot of David (albeit reversed).
The photographs are published as part of NME’s readers poll to ‘Build Your Own Supergroup’. This week, you can vote online for your favourite singer. They say:
‘Ziggy played guitar’, went the legend, but sod that, what better frontman could you want than a crimson-haired starman with freaky eyes, a voice like a throttled angel and a complete disregard of the age-old stage adage ‘never work with children or Martian spiders’?
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:))
Tomorrow's Today Show Winners Notified
Somewhere there’s a morning sky…
The winners of the contest we set yesterday for a place at David Bowie’s performance at NBC’s Today 2003 Toyota Summer Concert series tomorrow, should have now received an e-mail and/or a phone call. Likewise for the winners of this evening’s Carson Daly appearance.
As far as I can tell, even if you didn’t win a place you can still get to see David’s performance tomorrow, if you arrive early enough… ie, before 6:30am local time. I know some fans are turning up at 5:00am, and no doubt others will queue overnight, so please bear that in mind, as you don’t need a ticket for the general admission area.
However, our winners have a place in the VIP pen with their names on a guest list, for which they’ll need photo ID and their user name. If you aren’t sure if you have won or not, PM me and I’ll tell you.
Have fun, and let us know how it went. If you manage to get any good shots and are willing to share them via the news, then please do send them on to me.